Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Stephen Mintz's Huck's Raft Prologue


Some thoughts on Huck's Raft reading for this week:

The author talks about the history of childhood in three distinct phases: premodern, in which children were viewed as adults in training; modern, in which children were increasingly seen as malleable, innocent, and in a separate stage of life; and postmodern, in which the "norms" of childhood break down and children are no longer seen as naive and innocent.

This tied in nicely with reading I did for another class about the history of children's literature.  For that, a lot of the focus was on the mid-eighteenth century, when John Newbery started publishing books that were specifically intended for young readers and aimed to "delight" and "amuse" instead of just instruct or train children.  The books were also made to be "child-sized" so that small hands could easily hold them.  I didn't know much about this beforehand, and so it is interesting to think that using the word "amusement" was a landmark in children's literature, and the beginning of a new era of childhood.

Also, I thought the author's idea of postmodern childhood resembling premodern childhood was interesting.  It seems at first like colonial era children wouldn't have much in common with postmodern children!  But the idea of children in both phases no longer being the opposite of adults, and children growing up quickly and being knowledgeable about the realities of the world makes sense.  And he does differentiate the two by saying that postmodern children are participants in a "separate, semiautonomous youth culture."

Lastly, I thought the idea of Huck's raft as a symbol of childhood was interesting.  The idea of the raft symbolizing childhood as both an "odyssey of psychological self-discovery and growth," and also a journey fraught with danger and unexpected "currents."  This reading made me want to re-read the original Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!

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